Dear X

For divorced parents everywhere. May our children find peace, love and resiliance in spite of us.

Dear X,

I’ve written this letter so many times. Sometimes it was angry. Sometimes it was hurt. Sometimes I wrote pages and pages. Sometimes I would stop right here.

Each time I would ask myself “what is it I hope to achieve by writing this letter?” or sometimes, “what is it that I need to say that I keep writing this letter?” or occasionally, “what needs to be said to find peace or completion or closure?”

I want you to know that I didn’t know what marriage was when we married. I thought you were (and are) an amazing person, a human being doing good work in the world, loyal and intense. I thought if I were to marry anyone, you were the kind of person who could make such an impossible act possible. You clearly believed in marriage, and you promised to love me no matter what happened.

What I couldn’t see at that time added up to so much over time. I couldn’t see how I hid my greatness behind yours. I couldn’t see how I longed for an entirely different kind of life than what you and I could create together. I couldn’t see how my wounds and pain drove me. I couldn’t see that I did not have the kinds of values and plans that you really wanted.

I did see that someday you would be great at what you do. I did see that you would be a good parent. I did see that your existence in my life created a safe haven in which I could begin my healing. I did see that we were (and are) really different in our approaches to life and even to people.

I am sorry that my choices have been a source of pain for you. I am sorry that my own history of abuse made it difficult for me to see your pain and suffering clearly.

I hope you are creating a new life. I hope you build into your life the dreams that you don’t want to abandon, the ones that may have failed with me but could be exceptional with someone else. I hope for you forgiveness, love and authenticity; primarily because these are things I value above all others.

I never got a chance to say goodbye to you in person. I never saw an opportunity for such a sharing. I offer it now: Know in your heart that I love you, that you are good, wise, strong and admired. Know in your heart that any of the words said between us, that did not align with what I say now, were said from a place of hurt, anger and suffering. And that those words were untrue words which caused us both pain.

If you could imagine that I was a seed planted by god in your life to serve the sole purpose of awakening you to your true nature. And that you were such a seed for me, planted by god in my life to awaken in me my true nature, if you could imagine that this really is no one’s fault and that we both did our best in every moment, in every circumstance, then could you imagine a day when we could be thoughtful, attentive and at ease with each other? Showing our children the true meaning of presence, forgiveness and love.

Maybe this is another letter I can’t give you. Maybe it goes to the file of “impossible conversations.” But maybe not. Maybe today is the day there is a doorway into possibility which I did not see before.

Good Luck with your life. You are worthy of full loving attention. You are not broken, you do not need to be fixed.

Sincerely,

Your X.

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